"The universality of tattooing is a curious subject for speculation"Captain James Cook - 1779

"With the Haidas, however, every mark has its meaning ?" - James Swan, Tattoo Marks of the Haida, 1878.

"Not one great country can be named, from the polar regions in the north to New Zealand in the south, in which the aborigines do not tattoo themselves." Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 1871

In Tahiti, not all Europeans responded with the enthusiasm that had been exhibited by the British Admiralty's Captain James Cook, his Science Officer and Botanist, Sir Joseph Banks - who received a traditional Polynesian tattoo - and dozens of the ordinary sailors and seamen aboard Cook's ships. Missionaries who arrived in Tahiti at the end of the 18th century, turned tattooing from a standard practice into an embarrassing and punishable act of Paganism. King Pomare II was converted to Christianity in 1812 and he immediately put force behind a severe, regulated code that had been laid out by the missionaries. The death certificate for traditional tattoos was essentially signed in 1823 with the passage in the code that stated: "No one shall be tattooed and this practice should be completely abolished. This is an old and bad habit. Men or women who get tattooed will be judged and punished... The punishment for men will be work on ten measures of road for the first tattoo and 20 measures for the second tattoo... The punishment for women will be to make two big coats; one for the king and the other for the governor."